Need advice on buying a computer.

I'm a university student but I'm also a big Gamer and multimedia person. Never owned a decent pc... laptop im using right now still runs Pentium for gods sake. So now that i actually have a job i want to buy a laptop. I know the usual craic about if i'm looking to game i should spend my money on a desktop rather than a lappy. Now while this is a fairly good argument, my counter is, to buy a desktop means me sitting in my room for about 10hrs a day if i want to do anything computer based. So to not be anti-social towards my family, i'd much prefer a laptop.

So my question really is. To do all of the basics, to have a decent multimedia machine and to play older/less demanding games such as Minecraft, ESIV: Oblivion, SW: KOTR etc... do you guys think this is a good choice as it is roughly about the right amount i want to spend.